No Filter, All Heart: Remembering Todd Cochrane

The sudden passing of Todd Cochrane, Blubrry CEO and unwavering champion of independent podcasters, has left our community in shock and mourning. Having just spent meaningful time with Todd at Podcast Movement three weeks ago, we're grateful for those final conversations, booth visits, and moments in the Podcast Standards Project room.

Don't miss the final memorial episode of the New Media Show this Wednesday at 3pm EST, where Rob Greenlee will be joined by Adam Curry, Mike Dell, and Rob Walch to honor Todd's extraordinary legacy.

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Transcript

Alban: 0:00

Some really sad news this morning. Pod News today has the obituary for one of our friends, todd Cochran. Todd was the CEO of Blueberry, who I mean, I guess we first knew him as a competitor but then over the last I don't know 12 years of going to conferences together, I feel like Todd really had become a friend and really just a really nice guy and it's really sad to see that he passed.

Kevin: 0:24

Yeah, shocking and terribly sad. I mean I do feel grateful at the same time, like after processing it, that we just had podcast movement three weeks ago. We only get to see Todd a couple of times a year when we go to these conferences, and so I am grateful that we just had that recent opportunity to hang out with him and we got to spend a lot of good time with them this time in particular. I don't know why, like some conferences, we get a little bit more time with people than others, and this time it felt like we got a pretty good amount of time. I got to hang out with him in the lounge, we visited each other's booths, we spent a lot of time in the PSP room together, and I'm just grateful for that.

Kevin: 0:59

For people who don't know who Todd was, todd was the CEO of Blueberry and a major advocate for indie podcasters and open podcasting in general, so he's been very involved in the Podcast Standards Project.

Kevin: 1:12

He's been very involved with the Podcast Namespace Project and helping out and contributing opinions and code and been a trailblazer in terms of running a podcast hosting company that was implementing. I think he started about two years ago with this idea that Blueberry was going to lead the charge of implementing from the hosting side all of the podcasting 2.0 and podcasting namespace features in his product. I'm just really grateful that we got to spend time with him. I think it would have hit me I don't know a little harder, a little more sad, if I hadn't seen him recently. It just would have been like, oh gosh, I hadn't seen him in so long and I wonder how he was doing, and. But I'm glad that we got to connect and I got to catch up with him, ask about his family and ask about you know he was spending a lot of time overseas recently as a sweet time and memories that I'll cherish. Yeah, and it's hard to believe that he's gone. We're really going to miss him in the podcasting space for sure.

Alban: 2:08

Yeah, it's hard to overstate how probably influential he was, especially for indie podcasters. He started podcasting in 2004. I mean, he was early enough that when he podcasted about tech issues, steve Jobs called him and he was friends with Adam Curry and he'd done a show like this one called New Media Show that I think he did with Rob Greenlee for I don't know 13 years or something.

Kevin: 2:32

Yeah, and speaking of the New Media Show, there is going to be a final memorial episode this Wednesday at 3 pm. They do a live show. If you can't catch it at 3 pm Eastern Standard Time on Wednesday, you can, of course, find it wherever you get your podcasts and listen to it afterward. But that is going to be with his long-term co host, Rob Greenlee, and joining him is going to be Adam Curry, Mike Dell and Rob Walsh three really good friends of Todd and so that's going to be a special episode. So if you've never listened to the New Media Show before, don't miss this one. It's sure to be an excellent and touching episode.

Alban: 3:05

Yeah, I mean he spoke at pretty much every podcast movement I ever went to and was at every pod fest.

Kevin: 3:10

One of the first inductees into the podcast hall of fame. Oh really, yeah, If not the first one, maybe the second or third. Like very early in the podcasting hall of fame he was a huge proponent for just get started.

Alban: 3:23

Podcasts are really cool because you control your own destiny, you're not beholden to the platform. So he was very fierce advocate for RSS, for owning your owncom, as he used to say. Right, and just over the years I started going to my phone and pulling out old photos of him from all these conferences. We had one where I convinced him for some reason to watch the Buzzsprout booth. We were next to each other for a few days in LA and so I've got Todd Cochran running the Buzzsprout booth for a few minutes and just like he was you know he's always out he was telling people about podcasting and he was just a. He was more than happy to talk to someone for 30 minutes, even if they ended up, you know, with a different podcast host. He just loved the medium as much as really anybody did, and it's going to be sad to not see him at conferences going forward, because he really poured so much of himself into podcasting and, honestly, podcasting would not be the same if it wasn't for him.

Kevin: 4:24

Yeah, for sure. I mean it is a major loss, for I know he had a pretty large family and he had tons of friends and would talk about all of his Navy friends. He was a United States veteran, served our country proudly, talked about that all the time. So I know he had a large circle and they're heartbroken and are gonna miss him dearly. But he also, you know, more connected to us and what our relationship was was that he was very influential in the podcasting space and so like, and he just had a way about him that he could say things as they came to mind, with no filter, no holding back. You always got his raw, honest opinion, like regardless of what the consequences were and there were consequences like people would all the time be like I can't believe Todd said that and there were some business consequences or relational consequences or whatever.

Kevin: 5:15

For a long time when I first got into the industry, todd was in the industry longer than I was. I was like that's not a person I'm super interested in getting to know because he seemed so gruff. And then over time Alvin has this good way of just seeing like the good in people and just saying I know that there's like Kevin give him a chance. Sure enough, like over time Alvin's persistence in getting me to continue to engage with Todd I really did get to see how nice and caring he was and that's.

Kevin: 5:40

He didn't have a filter, but he was, he was thoughtful, but he just kind of as he processed stuff, he processed out loud. So initially you'd get like the kind of gruff initial response and then as you process more and more and more you got to see that oh, it's coming from a place of caring, it's coming from a place of passion and wanting to be able to support this industry long-term. And so maybe his initial reaction of when he tweeted something or just said something it wasn't just as rough as it sounded on the surface that there was a lot of care and compassion behind it. And I finally got to see that after years and years and years. And one regret I have is that it took me so long to befriend him that it's really only in like in the past three or four years that I really got to see that side of Todd and got to connect with him in that way.

Alban: 6:27

Yeah, I, the way I explained it to my wife was Todd was made for podcasting and podcasting was made for Todd, Like this whole idea of you get to connect your audience directly and nobody gets to be the filter. And that is what Todd was. He shot from the hip and there are plenty of times that someone would send me a tweet from his and it has one like and they're like hey, see what Todd said. I completely agree there you go?

Kevin: 6:53

I would never say it. I'm glad he did, yeah, yeah.

Alban: 6:56

But there are times where he's like, hey, I'm, stuff would change in the industry and he'd go. You know, I don't know if this is the right path with consolidation or with companies selling, and he'd go. I don't like it. Here's why I don't like it. He was willing to be the first one to say it and then, privately, people would be like, yeah, actually, I totally agree with Todd. If we're all about RSS, maybe the changes with YouTube or Spotify aren't exactly right. So he was a trailblazer. He shot from the hip. He was a really genuinely kind person and I wish his family and his friends and everybody at Blueberry that he worked with the best. You'll definitely be in our thoughts and prayers.

Kevin: 7:33

Yeah.

Alban: 7:33

Godspeed Todd.